Speaking at ETCIO Spectrum 2021, industry leaders revealed how their firms used different strategies to not just survive but also grow exponentially in the lockdown.

With the pandemic hitting businesses hard throughout the world, the pressure is increasing on technology & business leaders to make the best out of the situation with iterative innovation, which pushes the culture of improving technology to its extent with the limited means that are possible in today’s time. In this environment of uncertainty, the only hope businesses have for advancement lie in the continuous innovation of technology, with limited means and budget, which can act as the stepping stone into the company’s future.

Taking the example of various companies from five different verticals to showcase how resilience and iterative innovation has helped benefit them in times of crises, let’s see how companies have used various strategies to cope with the pandemic. The banking sector makes for the backbone of the economy, so it is crucial to see how they have managed for the past year. Speaking on the topic during the Panel Discussion on Unlocking Growth & Resilience through Iterative Innovation at ETCIO Spectrum, Anita Pai, CIO at Yes Bank states,

“The question of whether Yes Bank has been resilient over the last one year, I think, the answer is a resounding yes…if you look at Yes Bank’s particular circumstances when the Covid-19 lockdown began last year, we were just emerging out of the moratorium, which is a once in a…banking industry ever to happen kind of a situation, so we came out of the moratorium with a new board and a completely new team and managed to bring back all our customers and reassure all our customers,”

With the banking sector operating throughout the pandemic, albeit with half of its strength, it is critical to take into consideration other verticals like transport services like Uber that have added package delivery and food delivery to their lines of services in the past year.

“Couple of things for me that stands out is how we have doubled down on Uber as a platform and delivery growth for our company and our customers…food delivery, grocery delivery has been the growth enabler for Uber in the past year and we are really proud of the pivot we have made in enabling and enhancing the delivery vertical of our business,” Megha Yethadka, Senior Director, Program Management at Uber talks at the panel discussion, of her experience with the lockdown in the past year.

It is interesting to note that while the dire situation seemed like a bane at first, even for a firm from the transport sector that was impacted terribly by the pandemic, has had quite a lot of growth in the past year by foraying into different sections of the business, eg – Uber Connect, Uber Medics, Uber Reserve that have helped diversify their model.

Shifting our attention to one of the hardest-hit industries, aviation, we spoke with Vinod Bhat, CIO at Vistara who stated, “Aviation was hit hard by the pandemic, but the good news is that Vistara had invested in the digital architecture, which was one of the first airlines in India, and one of the first airlines in the world to be on the cloud completely…and we had introduced touchless, paperless boarding about two years, that means our digital transformation had started way back,”

With the proper planning and investment in the right iterative technology, Vistara managed to avert, what could have been a major crisis in the past year. The pandemic helped fastrack the digital transformation process that a lot of companies had invested in.

“So we had two challenges, one is how do we make sure that we adhere to the regulations, to the process compliance for the customers, as well as, for the regulatory bodies and how do we help customers to travel back and still address the safety factor and address the hygiene factor,” Vinod explained on the challenges faced by the company, as well as the industry.

Investing in digital transformation, along with the PCP infrastructure, has helped companies throughout all verticals, one such being FMCG giant, Marico. Crediting more than just investments for their resilience, Uday Raj Prabhu, CIO at Marico says, “The larger reason for being resilient is also an empowered workforce, who are willing to put that extra bit and be extremely agile,”

While the demand for consumer goods has been high, even in the pandemic, the situation called for innovation in their products that enabled them to strengthen themselves even more so than before.

The pandemic may have proved to be a blessing for many, but not one more than the IT sector. Speaking of their excellent growth, Natarajan Radhakrishnan, President & Chief Innovation Officer at HGS Ltd. explains how they managed to make the best out of the worst,

“The proof is in the pudding…if you look at our nine-month results, this has been the best nine months for us ever, and if we look at the customer satisfaction scores, we have unbelievable net promoter scores at the recently concluded customer satisfaction survey, and I just got the employee satisfaction scores a week back and again, record scores,”

“So we did three major things, I would classify them into – technology initiatives, employee-related initiatives, and then the customer connect,” he explains further on how they managed to excel the way they did.

With such nuanced examples of iterative innovation, some being planned way before the pandemic, & resilience in the face of such adversity, it is evident that only through continuous effort & investment in the technology can lead us into the future, whatever field that may be.

https://cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/strategy-and-management/how-resilience-iterative-innovation-helped-india-inc-power-through-the-pandemic/83392629